Welcome to the Makery Apprenticeship

Welcome to The Makery Apprenticeship.

Welcome to your Apprenticeship with The Makery! Over the next four weeks, you will learn the fundamentals of user experience design and practice your skills a design project! At the end of the Apprenticeship, we will give you resources and connect with fellow designers to launch your design career!

Learn

During your apprenticeship, you will learn the fundamentals of user experience design.

Practice

As you learn, you will practice your new skills on a project of your choosing.

Launch

As you finish you apprenticeship, you will be able to start to launch a career in UX design.

WEEK ONE

We start by getting to know the user.

OverviewIf you want to design a successful product for people, first of all you need to understand them. Designing for everyone results in an unfocused goal that will dehumanize the profile of future users. The personas method allows you to draw not just a profile about gender and age, but to dig into the psychology of the imagined character in their interaction with the product. Additional benefits of personas include: ​

Deep understanding of customer behavior and needs

Stop everyone in your company from talking about themselves, their friends and family as the user(s)

Over 15,000 websites will be designed today. Yours can be one of them!

WEEK TWO

Now, we build the "blueprints" for the website.

Now that you know your user, let’s start to build them a great digital experience. The first step in that process is to sketch the blueprints for your website - these are also called, "Wireframes." Wireframes are used early in the software development process to establish the basic structure of a page before visual design and content is added.

For this lesson, take a look at some websites that are similar to your idea. Take notes on the strengths and weaknesses of each website in order to make more informed decisions about your own website. In particular, keep an eye out for common patterns, or designs that are really working well.

When you are ready, start to sketch out your wireframes. Remember, you don’t need to have the skills of Leonardo Da Vinci to sketch. A sketch can look bad and still work wonderfully. What matters isn’t your artistic ability, but your ability to explain different your concepts..

Homework

Hand-sketch mobile and desktop wireframes for your website. You may also try wireframing software too.

The average salary for a UX designer is $60,000.

WEEK THREE

Next, we fill in the wireframe with User Interface (UI) design.

User interface (UI) design is the process of making interfaces in software or computerized devices with a focus on looks or style. Designers aim to create designs users will find easy to use and pleasurable.

We’re visual creatures by nature, and UI Design at its core drives us to interact with products, and if done correctly, it builds credibility between brands and their audiences.

The best way to learn UI design is practice! Please review the resources below, download the UI kit from you mentor, and just start experimenting. It takes time to get the hang of things, but lots of creative fun once you learn the basics.

There are over 100 companies lookingfor User Experience designers in Minnesota!

WEEK FOUR

Now, let's see what real users have to say.

User testing refers to a technique used in the design process to evaluate a product, feature or prototype with real users. There are several reasons why you might want to undergo usability testing, the most common is that it allows the design team to identify friction in a user experience they are designing, so that it can be addressed before being built or deployed. Identifying any issues early reduces the longer term cost.​Typically tasks are set which users are asked to perform to the best of their ability, while observers watch, listen and take notes.Setting up user testing involves creating a test plan, recruiting participants, performing the test, and analyzing the results to produce findings & recommendations.Homework

Following your apprenticeship you will have the opportunity to continue to grow your skills with real projects at The Makery.

We have a strong network with some of the top design companies in the Midwest who are eager to interview and hire talented designers. In addition, we will help guide you to "breaking into" this industry.